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Golf prodigy Michelle Wie celebrates her 16th birthday on Tuesday, just days after turning professional and putting her signature to a contract with Nike worth almost £3 million. This and other sponsorship deals should make the 6ft schoolgirl with a 300-yard swing the third-best-paid female athlete in the world.

There are other talented women golfers, some of them not much older than Wie, but she has attracted attention (and some resentment) by competing against men, beating 64 of the world’s top male golfers in a PGA tour event and announcing that she intends to be the first woman to play